


Chirping Chippy Chips (don't come cheap)

by betheflame, HogwartsToAlexandria



Series: The Face of Salvation, and Other Sobriety Shorts [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Adopted Peter Parker, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Arguing, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Parent Steve Rogers, Parent Tony Stark, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Superfamily, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, parenting is hard, teen drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-30
Updated: 2020-03-30
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:00:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23392885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/betheflame/pseuds/betheflame, https://archiveofourown.org/users/HogwartsToAlexandria/pseuds/HogwartsToAlexandria
Summary: When Peter doesn't come home by curfew, his dads worry, but not too much, they know their son, he's responsible enough to be fine. When he comes home hammered on the other end, well, both Steve and Tony think maybe it's time to have that conversation now.Chapter 1:Tony Stark Bingo 2020 Fill, S1: Sober (card number 3026)Chapter 2:Tony Stark Bingo 2020 Fill, S4: Abandonment Issues (card number 3017)
Relationships: Peter Parker & Steve Rogers & Tony Stark, Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Series: The Face of Salvation, and Other Sobriety Shorts [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1664494
Comments: 24
Kudos: 219
Collections: Tony Stark Bingo 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! A new alcohol/sobriety-related short story. I (HogwartsToAlexandria) wrote chapter 1 and, upon sending it to Betheflame for beta, inspired her enough that she wrote an amazing 2nd chapter for it so here we go, bringing it to you! 
> 
> We made ourselves emotional writing it, so we sincerely hope you'll enjoy the read!

"Are you fucking kidding me, Pete? Are you fucking  _ serious _ ?" 

Steve looked up from the pot of tea he was preparing. 11pm on a Thursday was a tea time, not a coffee time, like he'd had to explain to Tony when, after pacing about 3000 holes in the floor, he'd made a go for the kitchen. 

Steve turned the heat off from under his pot, and walked out of the open kitchen to turn back into the sitting-room, where he almost dropped the dish towel he was wiping his hands with. 

Tony was positively seething with rage, his hands shaking at his sides as he continued to yell at Peter who in turn was… having trouble staying upright apparently. 

Two and two added up inside Steve's brain with the next stumble of his 15-year-old son. Well, fuck. 

"Tony," Steve finally walked to their level, "Sweetheart, go sit down, I'll take care of it," Tony's head whipped to look at him, his jaw squared but his eyes pleading - breaking Steve's heart since 1999 - "please?" 

Tony looked between Peter's flushed face and Steve's own, quiet blue eyes, and then nodded.

"Fine. He's grounded. Until forever." Tony bit the air. 

His steps were heavy and quick as he made his way back to the couch, only sitting on the edge of it with his fingers stapled underneath his chin. His eyes never left Peter. 

"Peter," Steve turned to his son, only then fully taking in the state he was in - properly plastered. "Peter let's go, up to the bathroom, right now." 

The boy didn't even try to protest, only squeaked when he stumbled on the third step and Steve caught him before he fell. It could probably have been funny, Peter wasn't an irresponsible kid, never had been, so this had to be the first time he really tried to drink with his friends, and he'd pay hell the next day, but it wasn't funny in this family, not at all. 

Steve walked his son up to the bathroom, made him sit on the toilet lid and put a toothbrush in his hand as well as a glass of water. 

"Brush. I'll be back in two minutes." 

Steve went into Peter's room, pulled a drawer open in his dresser and took out random clean PJs. He came back to the bathroom to find Peter clumsily closing the tap, water sloshed around the sink but the rest of the room otherwise clean.

"You look like shit, Pete, not a good look." Steve said as Peter looked up at him with puppy eyes rendered ineffective by the sickly shine in them. He was pissed, too, just not for all the same reasons as Tony. "Put these on, wash your face, go to bed."

Steve crossed his arms over his chest, and leaned on the door frame. 

"You're staying here?" Peter had the gall to look appalled - or as much as he could when he seemed on the verge of giving back everything he'd drunk that night. 

"Yes, yes I am, and you're doing what I'm telling you, young man. And then I'll tuck you in, too." Steve nodded, keeping his voice firm even as he saw the little scowl on his son's face -  _ don't smile, Steven. _

Kids shouldn't be allowed to grow up this fast. 

It took Peter another five minutes to wrestle his feet into his pajama pants and then some two minutes more to take out a circle of cotton to apply his skin cream over his face and the inside of his elbows like the dermatologist told them to do. 

"You forgot your fingers." Steve reminded him, more gently this time, he knew how much the boy hated this routine - he also knew the cortisol was the only thing that stopped him from scratching himself irreparably. 

Peter trudged out of the bathroom, Steve in tow. They walked slowly to Peter's bedroom, and Steve only left after he'd placed a bucket near his head and made sure Peter was sleeping on his side, his comforter pulled up all the way to his shoulder. 

"We'll talk about it in the morning. Sleep now." 

Steve hovered a minute longer, washing his son close his eyes and cursing silently. 

He went back down, found Tony sitting in the same position on the couch and only stopped to brush his husband's shoulder before going back into the kitchen. 

"Be right back." 

He finished his pot of tea, took out two mugs and three sugar cubes - or Tony would have an even bigger fit, no doubt - and put it all on a tray. 

Once he was sitting on the couch again, Steve turned sideways to look at Tony. 

"He's home now." He tried, his voice soft and searching. 

"In what fucking state." Tony hissed. 

"Baby," Steve reached out to unclasp Tony's hands, taking one of them in his, squeezing. "He'll be fine, and this doesn't mean anything, and--" Steve raised his voice a bit when he saw Tony ready to growl back, "we'll talk to him in the morning."

Tony's eyes were filled with tears he wouldn't shed when he turned to look at Steve for the first time since he'd come back into the room.

"Or I can, if you want?" Steve tried again. 

"I don't…" Tony sighed, "I don't know how to tell him." 

He sounded so heartbroken, and Steve could hear, even if Tony didn't say the words, he could hear how he still considered this part of his life, this part of who he was really, a failure. And it killed him. 

"Then I will. I'll tell him how strong his Dad is, every fucking day that passes. I'll tell him how he can't do what he did tonight, and why, and how we know this isn't the path he wants nor deserves. I'll tell him, Tony, how you've survived this, how you're winning your fight every day, and he shouldn't start one." Steve caught his breath when Tony snorted wetly. 

"Fucking TED-Talk Rogers," Tony smiled, tears finally running down his cheeks. 

Steve squeezed Tony's hand again, and then said  _ fuck this _ , and pulled Tony to him, until he had his husband sitting on top of him and could wrap his arms around him, Tony's head in his neck. 

"I'm too fucking proud of you to let you look down on yourself," Steve whispered, fierce, almost angry, love shining through every word. He squeezed his arms around Tony for emphasis, then kissed the crown of his head, letting his eyes slide closed as he rocked them both. "Too fucking proud of my superhero husband." 

"I'm not--" 

"Shush, Stark."

"It's Rogers." Tony murmured, some cheek filtering back into the words. 

"That's right." Steve nodded, smiling into Tony's hair. 

Tomorrow would be another day. It would be Peter's first hangover, and the one day Steve and Tony would tell him how it coincided with Tony's 180th month of sobriety, his 5479th day without a drop of alcohol sipped or gulped down or running in his blood. 15 years of winning the good fight that had given Steve his husband back, and had seen a baby delivered to their doorstep. 

15 years of Tony owning up to being a Dad, and finding himself as a man and husband again as well. 

Peter was a smart kid, he'd understand, he'd see, and he'd learn one more reason to admire his father, Steve knew it like he knew his name, and could count each of these days that marked a new virtual chip - and then some real ones - going to fit in Tony's achievement box in the third drawer of his desk, in his office, right down the hallway after their bedroom upstairs. 

Peter would be proud, just like Steve was, and they could all put this incident behind them. 

Rogers’ don't quit. Rogers’ support each other. Rogers’ love, and hug it out. Rogers’ walk hand in hand, and fight the right fights, together. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Peter gets a history lesson

“Peter,” Tony said the next morning. “We’re taking the day.”

Tony had been up the entire night, watched as day 5,479 turned to day 5,480, as he flipped through Peter’s baby books and the various photo albums Steve had made so diligently since their engagement. He passed his various sobriety chips through his fingers as he saw his boy grow up on the pages before him - knowing full well that if those chips weren’t part of his life, the boy wouldn’t be either.

“I need to tell him,” Tony said around midnight, when all the crying was done, and all the anger burned off, and all that was left was the plotting.

“Babe, I -”

Tony cut Steve off with a long, gentle kiss. “I need to tell him. I need him to hear from me that he’s part of why I choose this life, and why I got rid of my name, and the whole thing.”

Steve was quiet, his eyes searching Tony’s, looking for reassurance this wasn’t part of Tony’s martyr complex.

“This is the right call for us,” Tony reassured him.

“I trust you,” Steve replied. “I’m worried, but I trust you.”

But with Steve sleeping soundly, he climbed the stairs and shook his son awake. Steve had set out water and Advil like a good dad. Tony had other plans.

“Come on, Pete,” Tony repeated.

“Grafeasf,” Peter slurred as he rolled over.

“You gonna vom?”

“Did already,” Pete muttered.

“Good. Shower, get dressed, and I’ll see you in the car in ten minutes,” Tony replied and pulled Peter’s covers back abruptly.

* * *

Their first stop was Nina’s Fifties Cafe, a dive of a diner on the outskirts of town. The kind of place you only went if you were drunk. Which is why Tony hadn’t been there in 5,480 days. They sat down and Tony ignored Peter’s look of confusion when Tony ordered a stack of pancakes, a fried egg sandwich, a side of hashbrowns, and two cups of coffee.

“You don’t think you want the grease, but you do,” Tony said sagely.

“Dad, what are we doing here?” Peter’s voice was small and Tony was reminded that his son was a good boy. Not like he’d been, not with his baggage. Last night was an aberration, because thank fuck Peter didn’t have the Stark genes.

“The last time I was here,” Tony started, “was four days after you came home to us. Five thousand, four hundred, and eighty days ago right now.” Tony tapped his finger to the greasy table for emphasis. “I was hungover, just like you are, and I was miserable, and then your Pops showed up, and I was more miserable.”

The waitress showed up with their coffees and both men drank like it was actual life’s blood.

“You see, Pete, I’m an alcoholic.”

“You’re what?” Peter shook his head in confusion. “But we don’t have… I’ve never seen you…”

“I’ve been sober for five thousand, four hundred, and eighty days,” Tony replied, “but I am and always will be an alcoholic.”

Peter collapsed back into the booth as though someone had shot him. “I don’t understand,” he whispered.

“I’m going to start at the beginning, then,” Tony smiled sadly, “and then for the rest of the day, you and I are going to head down to the homeless shelter on 49th and we’re going to clean for them. You’ll understand why in a bit.”

Peter nodded and sipped his coffee.

“You asked a long time ago if we were ever going to meet your Grandpa and Grandma Stark and I told you that we couldn’t because they were dead, which is absolutely true. What I left out was that your grandpa killed them because he was driving home from me and Pops’ wedding and was so trashed that he wrapped his car around a tree,” Tony said plainly. “But before that, him and me weren’t exactly close. He cheated on my mom constantly - I probably have half siblings out there we’ll never track down - and he never, not once, showed up for something important to me when he was sober.

“He used to,” Tony’s voice cracked slightly, “he used to beat me pretty good, too, and tell me how I’d never be a real Stark because I couldn’t hold my liquor. Which, by the way, he started making me drink when I was about 12.”

“Fuck, Dad,” Peter sighed.

“Lang-”

“I know, but really? That doesn’t deserve it?”

Tony smiled. “I’ll let it pass. Your grandpa was a fucking dickwad.”

Peter snorted and Tony continued.

“So I did what any self-respecting child of an alcoholic would do - I proved him wrong,” Tony paused to let the server place all their food. “Now, to be honest, I’ve met lots and lots of kids of alcoholics since that went the other way and never touched a drop of the stuff, but I went for the ‘If You Can’t Beat ‘Em, Join ‘Em’ method of not processing my massive abandonment issues and by the time I was your age, I was drinking at least a bottle of whiskey every weekend. College brought drugs along with the booze, and so did shame cycles and times of sobriety and by the time I met your Pops, I was on my second rehab.”

“It took five more to get me sober, but it took you to make me keep it,” Tony waved his fork at his son. “This isn’t a guilt trip, this is the truth, and you need to know it. I will never react logically to you drinking, ever. When we are toasting at your wedding in ten years, I will blanche if you drink champagne, that is just how I am. Your Pops chooses not to drink in solidarity with me, but your Uncle Bucky and your Aunt Nat? They can certainly teach you how to do it responsibly if that’s something you want, but I will never be fully comfortable with it and I just gotta be honest about that.”

“Because you’re afraid I’ll be your dad?”

“Because I never want you to feel what I felt every single time I broke your Pops’ heart,” Tony sniffed back a tear. “I never want you to know the bone deep shame that comes with realizing that this disease became your center of gravity instead of the person you loved. I never want you to know that, Petey pie.”

Tony was full on crying into his pancakes now and had long stopped caring.

“Would I also like to spare you some of the memories I have? Sure,” Tony chuckled. “Because waking up in bed with people you don’t remember is not nearly as fun as movies would have you believe.”

Peter made a face and Tony was briefly reminded that it was an adolescent universal that they believed their parents never had sex.

“So anyway, I wasn’t a Rogers until you came along, buddy, did we ever tell you that?”

“No,” Peter shook his head. “I thought it was at the wedding.”

“No, it was when we were signing your adoption papers, your official full ones,” Tony explained. “You came to live with us when you were about two weeks old, but we didn’t get to fully sign the papers until you were six months. The first few nights you were with us? Oh god, Petey, I was so scared. I was so scared I’d be a terrible father, and that I’d be just like mine, and you deserved so much better and I already loved you so much that I was in pain - so I panicked. And instead of using all the coping mechanisms that I’d been taught over the years, I picked the one I knew the best and I went on a two-day bender.

“Steve found me here, in this booth,” Tony continued. “He had you strapped to his chest and you were fussy and we got all these looks from the other diners because it was 4am and I’m sure they all thought you should be in bed. But it was the first time I’d called him in two days, so he’d tell you he wasn’t really thinking about what time it was.”

“Two days, Dad?”

“It’s a bitch of a disease, kiddo,” Tony said simply. “So, here I was, sopping up cheap whiskey with pancakes and Steve was sitting where you are and he gave me the first ultimatum he ever gave me. We’d been together for about five years at that point and he’d never given me one. But with you strapped to his chest, he looked me dead in the eye and told me that if I ever ran out on you again he’d file for divorce so fast my head would spin. He said he loved me more than he had words for, but that his job was to be your father and so was mine and if I was going to fall down on the job, he sure wasn’t.”

“That sounds like Pops,” Peter said, the words catching over the tears in his throat.

“He said I had a choice, and that I had to make it every single day. He said I had to choose you, and him, and myself, and that every day I did that, we’d be okay,” Tony smiled. “And it has not been easy, Petey. I love you more than I love myself and that’s made it more straightforward, but I spent a lot of hours on the phone with a sponsor through the years, and your pops has spent a lot of nights with Uncle Bucky when I’ve been hard to live with, but you are why I’m alive, and you give me the power to choose this life.”

Peter got up from his side of the booth and curled himself into Tony’s side. “Dad I’m so sorry, I’m so, so sorry, it was stupid, and I was trying to impress a girl, and she left anyway after I threw up on my shoes and I’m so sorry and I love you-”

“Shh,” Tony soothed his son. “I’m not mad now, but I needed you to know why I was last night. You deserve the whole story, that’s all.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I know,” Tony said, still running his hands through Peter’s hair and kissing the crown of his head. “And I’m glad. Because what you did was fucking stupid, especially driving home on your learner’s permit drunk as the proverbial skunk and if you ever do that again you are walking everywhere until you are 21, but I have a feeling you maybe already learned that we don’t impress people by doing shots?”

Peter snorted and sat up, wiping his snotty nose on his sleeve and Tony’s heart clenched. _There’s my little boy._ “I woke up to a text from MJ telling me that if I ever did something that embarrassing again she was cancelling me forever.”

“Well, thank god for strong women,” Tony smiled. “But to finish the story, I clearly chose to go home from this place with you and Pops. I asked him about a week later if I could become a Rogers when you did - we already knew we were never saddling you with the Stark name and all its hereditary bullshit - and Pops cried like a bucket and it was all very moving and then we had your adoption ceremony and I was completely stoic at that.”

“Auntie Pep says you cried so hard you nearly blacked out,” Peter giggled.

“Your Aunt Pep is a famous liar,” Tony countered and Peter rolled his eyes.

“So why are we cleaning a shelter?”

“Because five thousand, four hundred, and seventy nine nights ago, they let me sleep there for a few hours instead of sleeping in a snowstorm. They bent the rules for me - you were supposed to be sober and I was absolutely not - and now you and I are going to spend the day remembering that choices have consequences,” Tony said. “So eat up, their toilets are nasty.”

* * *

“Good day?” Steve asked Peter as he and Tony walked back through the door later that day.

“Yeah,” Peter smiled. “I learned why Dad is a Rogers.”

“Ah,” Steve said, with a smile. “You went to Nina’s?”

“Still smells the same,” Tony affirmed as he gave Steve a kiss. “Now, Petey, homework for two nights?”

Peter rolled his eyes slightly. “It’s just Shakespeare.”

Steve cut a look over to Tony. “It’s just Shakespeare, the son of the English professor says. Just Shakespeare.”

“Oh, and this is when you stop being a Rogers,” Tony said with a twinkle in his eye. The banter continued for the rest of the evening and Steve knew all had settled again in his world.


End file.
